


Chicago Layover

by TroubleScout



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, happy holidays
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 23:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17130614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TroubleScout/pseuds/TroubleScout
Summary: AU: A midwestern blizzard strands Veronica and Logan. They haven't seen each other in 8 years. What's a star-crossed couple to do? Share a bed perhaps? Post-S3. Pre-movie.





	Chicago Layover

**Author's Note:**

> I have actually never been in an airport during a shutdown, so please forgive any inaccuracies. Or tell me what they are so I can poke at them in edit! x

“You’ve got to be kidding me!? Right? Please, _please_ , tell me you’re kidding me.”

“Miss Mars, we are truly sorry for the inconvenience, but do to the weather and the constraints it’s placed on our resources, we are currently unable to find you a hotel room.”

“But I called two hours ago and was _guaranteed_ you were holding me a room.”

“You would have be guaranteed a place on the waiting list, but not a room. In order to receive a room, travelers were required to show up in person. The last rooms were claimed 40 minutes ago.”

Veronica’s jaw clenches so tight she can feel the base of her neck start to spasm. “40 minutes ago I was still arguing with the ding-dongs in baggage claim because some _yahoo_ I spoke to _here_ had guaranteed me a room.”

“I apologize for any inconvenience, but there appears to have been a miscommunication. If you proceed the counter on the far left, they will be able to assist you in finding a cot should you choose to wait out the blizzard in the airport.”

Considering Veronica’s day so far, unsurprisingly it’s then that an announcement comes over the loud speaker, emanating from said counter on the far left…

_“Attention please, attention. There are no more cots available at this time. I repeat, there are no more cots available at this time. We are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience and will advise you if the situation updates. On behalf of our team here at O’Hare Airport, we would like to thank you for your patience and understanding.”_

The surrounding hordes of wayward travelers, whom had momentarily been brought to a halt, spring back to life in a flurry of expletives and groans. Veronica turns back the airport attendant in front of her with terse defeat, “So, no cot then.”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“And no rebooking my flight?”

“Not at this time.”

“Or finding my suitcase?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say a rental car is probably out of the question?”

“They made the final announcement 20 minutes ago.”

The compounding disappointments settle into her bones with weary resentment, “Fan- _freaking_ -tastic.”

“However, once we do locate your luggage, we would be happy to send it to you if you would like to provide a local address, weather permitting.”

Veronica levels a death glare. “Local address? _Right_. How about you just send it to the 163rd Huddled-mass-on-the-left, Baggage Claim, First Circle of Hell. That should do you.”

“Again, we are sorry for the—“

“Inconvenience. _Yeah_. Got it,” Veronica spits as she spins on her heel, stomping away. 

“ _Happy holidays!_ ”

“Yeah, fuck you too, buddy,” she mutters while pulling out her phone, intending to inform her father of her indefinitely delayed return to California. Instead, a burly, middle-aged woman dragging two huge luggage carts, bickering into her own phone, obliviously clips Veronica’s heel in the chaos, pitching her to the ground. Veronica’s Samsung Galaxy somersaults across the floor with a series of soul crushing cracks. 

“SHIT! _Shit!_ Shit-shit-shit. Pleasepleasepleasepleasedon’tbebroken.” Veronica is so busy scrambling on the floor to retrieve her phone, she hardly notices the hands encircling her waist to help her up. “SON OF A BITCH!”

“Hey, I thought you liked my mother.”

Baffled, her attention is dragged away from the cracked, flickering phone screen in her hand, to the warmth of the man towering above her: Logan Echolls

At the sight of him, her facilities quite abruptly careen to a halt.

_After all, what do you say to the former love of your life in the middle of baggage claim after 8 years of total estrangement?_

It isn’t until his expression shifts and he self-consciously removes his hands from her hips that she realizes she’s effectively stonewalling him with a lack of response. Jolting back to functionality, she finds her tongue, “Hi.”

“Hey.”

She tries casual on for size. “Passing through?”

He shares a mirthless smile, “If only.”

Suddenly bombarded by a family of five circumnavigating them with three small children, Veronica and Logan find themselves once again invading each other’s personal space. While she’s left deciphering the woodsy notes of his aftershave, he adroitly avoids losing a pinky toe to the little girl’s Pikachu suitcase and offers, “So what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” while guiding her out of the swiping range of a pair of cross-country skies approaching from behind.

Veronica teeters her phone before him as evidence, “It would seem the universe hates me.”

“The universe, huh? Impressive foe. You always did know how to make an enemy.”

“You?”

“Currently having a row with Mother Nature, but apparently everyone’s on her shit-list. Nothing special.”

“Not quite the prestige player of yesteryear, huh?”

“Ah, what can you do?” He shrugs his shoulders and fondles his flexed forearm as if nursing a fantom injury and all over again she’s gobsmacked with the reality of him: the presence and shape of him. He’s so broad and tan and gloriously lean, wearing hair close cropped on the sides and a crisp suit. She’d hardly recognize him at all except that she’d know him anywhere. 

Before she can fully register it, he’s got his arm outstretched and he’s offering her his phone.

“God, yeah, thanks. You’re a lifesaver.” Their eyes meet and then part just as quickly. Echoes of a rooftop from a different life.

“Come on,” he grabs her carryon and stacks it on his own before leading her out of the thick of the crowd to relative safety.

“Mind if I make a few calls?”

“Dial away,” he quickly swipes at his phone’s screen, unlocking it, and Veronica nods appreciatively before plugging her free ear with a finger and retreating into a corner. 

15 minutes later and she returns.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just tempering disappointment and concern. My dad’s pretty bummed I missing Christmas in sunny CA to languish in Siberia.”

They look out the windows to the punishing onslaught of snow Chicago is currently receiving and she’s right, it might as well be a swath of remote Russian tundra. ”Where’s an ushanka when you need it, huh? You gonna be warm enough?”

Veronica looks down at the overcoat she wore leaving a cold, but not brutally cold, New York City. “I should be fine.”

Logan looks unconvinced. “You got a ride?”

“Nope.”

“I’ve got a car service outside. Let me give you one. I doubt you’ll manage to wrangle a cab anytime soon in this disaster.”

“It’s okay.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not being silly; I have no place to go.”

“You don’t have a place to stay in Chicago?”

“Unscheduled stop on my way to Neptune.”

“No hotel?”

“Thought I snagged one, but you know, _universe_.”

“Right. So, you’re planning on staying,” he scans the luggage conveyer belts and general chaos, “ _here_?”

“It’s no Grand, but it’ll do.”

“ _Veronica_.”

And there it is: her name on his lips. It’s a potent cocktail. It begins to ply her immediately and she knows this. She resists it.

“Come on, I can cozy up with Cujo, the dog-faced boy over there,” she gestures to a particularly hirsute hipster-wannabe creating a de facto nest by the restrooms. “He looks sufficiently nonthreatening. It’ll be fine.” Cujo proceeds to take off his shoes and pull out a mason jar of what appears to be homemade asparagus pickles. They both wince.

“Please don’t subject yourself to that.”

“What else am I going to subject myself to?” She jests, panning the room of stranded travelers with her outstretched arm, “Make me a better offer.”

He pauses, contemplative, before turning towards her quietly resolute. “Me.”

She returns to him slowly with a studied gaze, “ _Logan_.”

And there it is, his name on her lips; second cocktail down and her head is really starting to swim.

“Look, I’ve got a room at the Four Seasons—”

She rolls her eyes, “Of course you do,” and he looks slighted while she’s immediately regretful. 

“I didn’t mean—“

“No, I didn’t—“ She’s reluctant to explain she was pissy because of his privilege, not offended by a perceived proposition. Either way, she still won’t come off well.

“I can’t leave you here,” he says, both a statement and a plea.

His soft, dark eyes linger on hers with palatable concern. She wants to say yes and solve a very unpleasant impending situation, but the prospect of staying with him is it’s own potentially precarious situation. She suddenly feels mercilessly teenaged and terrified. “Sure you can.”

“For who knows how many days.”

“It ain’t so _looong,_ ” she sing-songs, blatantly lying.

“With no phone.”

She sighs. Logan and his reality checks. There’s a Verizon store in the airport, but now she can’t get back through security. 

And the real truth of it is, she knows she’s being ridiculous. He’s offering her a warm, safe, viable option. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Imposing would be making me imagine you spending your holiday here.”

It’s time to be rational and so she finally relents, with a racing heart and a carefully annunciated, “Okay.” 

The context of her response is vague, but its intent, its meaning, is clear to Logan in her delivery. Some microscopic, ghost of a muscle quirks in his mouth and then fades just as instantly. “Good,” he replies steadily. Then his entire physique visibly relaxes and she has to admit, her own neck stops twinging just a bit. “I’ll just call the driver and let him know we’re going to grab your bag.”

“Um, quick aside, they actually lost my bag.”

“ _Seriously_?”

“Seriously.”

“Universe?”

“ _Same bitch._ ”

“You sure do know how to pick a fight.”

“Hey, she picked it with me. I just was minding my own business. I don’t know what bug crawled up her butt.”

“I imagine any bug would be irritating,” he says offhandedly while checking his texts. “Okay the driver should be just out here. Do you have anything else to wear?”

“Not a one.”

He unzips his rolling bag and produces a forrest green cashmere sweater, which he drops over her head before she pulls on her coat. It smells insanely good and she forcibly attempts to blink away a hormonal rush while smoothing her newly static-infused hair back into place. “Nothing for you?”

“I was also headed to California.” He bobs his eyebrows just once.

“Right,” she says like it was obvious, even though she honestly had no idea. Logan on a connecting flight seems incongruous. They turn towards the exit. “Think warm thoughts?”

“Hot toddies and Timbuktu. Ready?”

They witness a forty-something man’s legs skate frantically underneath him before he upends on the pavement. “ _Steady_ ,” she cautions.

“Go,” they chime in unison as he grabs her hand, leading her through the revolving door out into the blistering cold.

They scramble amidst tearing eyes and numbing limbs into the awaiting SUV. Their driver, Joey Sasperstein, has already put on the heated seats and Veronica’s never been so grateful for what she used to believe was a frivolous luxury.

Joey is snowcapped man in his early 70s who speaks charmingly, and with great gusto, of growing up in neighboring Indiana, Midwestern winters, and how excited he is to celebrate Christmas with his six grandchildren. Logan and Veronica barely have to put a word in before he’s off on another tangent. For example, his wife’s fruitcake, which according to him, isn’t a comically inedible paperweight like other people’s fruitcake. “It’s a taste sensation! Worthy of the 364 day wait every year!” When he finds out Veronica and Logan are snowbound, he actual offers to have them to his home for Christmas supper an hour and 15 minutes away. A more than generous, if impractical offer, which Veronica politely declines. “At least you two have each other! Christmas orphans!” Joey calls them, with no understanding of how on the nose he is concerning Logan. 

It was then Veronica involuntarily gave Logan’s hand a squeeze and subsequently realized she hadn’t let his go of his hand since the airport. Logan must have sensed her sudden trepidation, because he looks over at her and gives an inverted smile, squeezing her hand once before letting it go. 

Moments later, Joey repeats his invitation for dinner, this time with door to door delivery service included, free of charge, and Logan politely repeats Veronica’s declination from earlier. “We’ll be alright. We’re not used to big families. Besides, we wouldn’t want to put you in any danger on the roads. I hear it’s just supposed to get worse as the week continues.”

“Oh, I’ll be driving on these roads if these roads are possible to drive, you can bet on that, young man. I need all the work I can get. I mean, you wouldn’t believe it to look at me - Sapersteins age well, you know — but I have six grandchildren!”

“You don’t say?” Veronica milks the situation for comedic effect while catching Logan’s eye, “How is young Jean-Ralphio doing? Still BFFs with little Tommy Haverford?”

“Who? I’m sorry, dear,” replies a baffled Joey, “I couldn’t quite hear?”

“That Mona Lisa sure seems like a handful,” Logan chimes in on the _Parks & Rec_ themed hazing, making Veronica grin.

“Who now?" Joey, not in on the joke, makes his best assumption, "Do you mean Marie and Theresa? Sweetest little mutts. And part poodle too; so no shedding! Science; it’s amazing stuff. My wife bakes dog treats for them too, dontcha know?”

“No kidding, Joey. She wouldn’t have any holiday specials, now would she?” ploys Veronica.

“You know, it’s funny you should ask. She makes the most marvelous fruitcake!”

“Is that so.”

Logan shakes his head and mouths, “What is wrong with you?” to Veronica with begrudging amusement as Joey, who clearly has a less than stellar short-term memory, starts back in on that damn baked good. “Have you ever had a delicious fruit cake? Of course you haven’t! Cause no one makes delicious fruit cake. No one except my dear Bobbie, that’s who! The secret? Soak it in bourbon, that’s what!”

It’s at this moment the vehicle fishtails, skidding for a good 10 feet, causing Veronica and Logan to exclaim, “Holy shitballs!” and, “What the ever-loving fuck!?” in proper terror.

Unfazed, Joey gives a good belly laugh, “You two really are California kiddos aren’t ya? Just a little black ice; I’ve got it handled. No need to worry. But Lord love a duck, you two have some right colorful vocabulary! It’s good thing you weren’t raised by my Bobbie. She’d be washing out your mouths with a bar of soap this very minute. Why I tell you…”

Joey’s tales continue until they pull up to the Four Seasons. It’s then that Veronica realized that she must have grabbed Logan’s hand when they swerved, for she was still holding it now and he was using it to help her out onto the sidewalk. “Quick,” he murmurs, “get inside before you lose an appendage.”

By no means wanting to endure the icy temperatures longer than need be, Veronica scurries through the lobby doors groaning with glorious relief as she’s blasted with a wave of toasty air.

She sees Logan and Joey exchanging words and shaking hands from her catbird seat. Minutes later, when Logan finally makes it inside, he sincerely looks like he might be suffering from hypothermia.

“Santa could fly by the shells of your ears,” she gibes, giving one a pinch with her warm fingertips. “What took you so long?”

Giving her a bit of side eye, he clips out, “Chatty guy,” between full body shivers, chattering teeth, and rubbing his hands together briskly.

“All appendages still intact?” 

He briefly pats down body including the front of his pants, punctuated with an expression of relief.

She chirps with laughter, “ _Classy_.”

“I honestly couldn’t have told you if I hadn’t checked. Christ, why the hell does anybody live here?!” he wonders with a good shudder.

“They may, perhaps - _and I could be wrong about this, cause this is just a theory_ \- actually have invested in climate appropriate clothing. And then, you know, actually have _implemented_ said climate appropriate clothing. _Appropriately_.”

Logan blows warm air into his cupped hands. “Still wouldn’t be worth it.” 

“Don’t you go skiing? Isn’t cold weather part of the whole thing?”

“It’s not this cold. I wouldn’t go if it was this cold.”

“Come on tough guy, let’s figure out how you checkin this joint.” There was no reception on the street level, just a banquet of elevators.

“Up first, I guess.”

As Veronica boards the elevator, he can’t resist touching his still icy fingertips to the back of her warm neck to hear her to yelp in horror, “AHHH!! Oh my god! EVIL! _Why?!_ ”

He gives her a gleeful shirk, “Who’s the tough guy now?”

“ _Still not you!_ ” she shoots back incredulously with a series of smacks.

“Sorry!” he chuckles, holding his hands up in retreat as they exit the elevator for the lobby on the 7th floor, but when they fall back into mirroring strides, she jumps aside in giggles, fearful of a second attack. Again, he shows deference with outstretched palms, “No more icy pokes, I promise!”

“You better not; only lovely warm appendage pokes from you, please.” Her eyes go still and her gait becomes more clipped. Mortified by the words that just came out her mouth, she considers ignoring the situation, but can see his smirk reflected in the glass of the art as they walked by. “Oh, shut up!”

Logan attempts to temper his amusement as they approach the reception desk, “Didn’t say a peep.”

A sharply dressed woman whose name tag reads Maritza greets them warmly, “Checking in?”

“Yeah,” Veronica gestures to Logan, “this numb-nut booked a room.”

Brimming with barely suppressed delight, Logan steps forward, “She’s charming, don’t you think?”

Baffled, the receptionist does what she can to appease, “Um, she seems _lovely_? _Sir_?”

“Quite a winning creature. A trifle simple perhaps, but her appeal is undeniable.”

Veronica scoffs. “Quit maligning me with stolen lines, Count Rugen, and tell the nice woman your actual name.”

Veronica and Logan are bearing friendly, feral teeth at each other and the receptionist is still getting nowhere. “Um, Mr. Rugen? Is it? I don’t seem to have a reservation under that name…”

Veronica’s a little appalled. “I’m afraid you need a serious film education, my friend.” 

Logan blindly gestures towards Veronica, “Don’t mind her, she’s incorrigible. The room should be be under Echolls, Logan Echolls.”

“Ah yes, sir, very lucky man, last room in the hotel. There was a board meeting over the weekend and all those who could extended their stays because of the storm.”

“Certainly grateful for the accommodations. Where might they be?”

“Room 3642. Elevators are around the corner, past the lounge and to your right.”

As they board the elevator and stand side by side, watching the floor count tick ever higher, Veronica floats, “ _I’m_ incorrigible?” in a blithe tone. “That’s a laugh.”

Logan bobs his eyebrows. “Well, you certainly _ain’t corrigible_.”

They reach their floor with a chime and the doors part. "Pot." Veronica extends an arm, giving him right of way to exit.

“After you, kettle.”

Each can hardly stand how much fun they’re having.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is long gestating, so I'm not sure when you'll get the next part, but I'll try not to keep you waiting too long... But I think you can guess the sleeping arrangements. Could there be one bed in their future?? Gee, I wonder. :)
> 
> I hope you liked it!
> 
> Happy holidays!! xx


End file.
